Obama's Inauguration Day is a day for MLK Jr., too

President Barack Obama speaks at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington on Oct. 16, 2011. Monday's inaugural may be Obama's big day, but Martin Luther King Jr. will loom large over the festivities. A quirk in the calendar pushed Obama's public swearing-in onto the national holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader, and inaugural planners have taken pains to acknowledge that fact. Going into his second term, Obama seems to have put King at the front of his mind, too.

Monday's inaugural may be President Barack Obama's big day, but Martin Luther King Jr. will loom large over the festivities.

WASHINGTON — Monday's inaugural may be President Barack Obama's big day, but Martin Luther King Jr. will loom large over the festivities.

A quirk in the calendar pushed Obama's public swearing-in onto the national holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader, and inaugural planners have taken pains to acknowledge that fact. Going into his second term, Obama seems to have put King at the front of his mind, too.

The president has referenced King in speeches, and the weekend of inaugural festivities opened Saturday with a National Day of Service in King's honor. Obama and his family also helped spruce up an elementary school in southeast Washington. The Obamas have performed community service work on the King holiday in each of the past four years.

Obama spoke at the 2011 dedication of a monument to King on the National Mall and is likely to include King in his inaugural address.

The president has said King is one of two people he admires "more than anybody in American history." President Abraham Lincoln is the other. In a nod to that admiration, Obama will take his ceremonial oath of office Monday using Bibles owned by both men. Lincoln's Bible, which Obama also used in 2009, will rest on top of King's, which is larger.

"The movements they represent are the only reason that it's possible for me to be inaugurated," Obama said in a video released by inaugural planners.

Obama is perhaps the most high-profile product of King's quest for civil rights and racial equality in the U.S. He credits King for his own political victories, particularly the 2008 election win that lifted him over the highest hurdle for minorities in American politics.

Even with that, there are distinctions in their styles. While King was a staunch advocate for the poor and downtrodden, Obama has been faulted by critics who say he's been reluctant to push issues of concern to black people and take steps to reduce high rates of black unemployment. Where King opposed wars in general and was an unwavering advocate of nonviolence, Obama has shown himself to be willing to target and kill leaders of terrorist groups overseas.

Fredrick Harris, director of Columbia University's Center on African-American Politics and Society, argues that Obama's reluctance to bring black issues to the forefront undermines the work of King and other civil rights leaders whose efforts made his presidency possible.

"Dr. King died in 1968 fighting for low-wage garbage workers in Memphis, Tenn. He was starting a national poor people's movement to address the issues of poverty," Harris said. "With the president, a Democratic president for that matter, who has spoken less on race or the poor or poverty than any Democratic president in a generation, it is problematic when we think of that aspect of King's legacy."

On at least one foreign policy issue, the Middle East, Obama and King seem to be in accord. Lewis V. Baldwin, a religious studies professor at Vanderbilt University, writes in a new book that Obama's approach to Israeli security and empowering the Palestinians dovetails with King's thoughts on the matter.

On the jacket of Baldwin's book, "In a Single Garment of Destiny," Obama explained his take on King's idealism.

"When met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the 'isness' of today. He kept pushing for the 'oughtness' of tomorrow," Obama wrote.

Obama recognizes his role in U.S., and even world, history and how he has benefited from the work of King and other civil rights advocates. During his presidency, he has paid regular tribute to King, who was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., when Obama was just 6 years old. American's first black president will deliver his second inaugural address looking out across the National Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech nearly 50 years ago.

Popular Comments

One was a uniter and the other is a divider. we can only look forward Barry
leaving office in four years

7:37 a.m. Jan. 21, 2013

Top comment

DanO

Mission Viejo, CA

The dividers are people like yourself. You have the power to accept that he is
president and do something to work with the rest of us, but you choose
negativity and obstruction. Obama won the election twice. It's time to get
over it. In case you
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